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There is an article in this morning’s Washington Post by Ishaan Tharoor entitled, “Is regime change in Iran part of Trump’s agenda?” The answer offered is an assertive “yes.” The following evidence is offered:

Rudy (Rudolph) Giuliani, The Donald’s newly-appointed personal lawyer, just said so in an unexpected speech (both in timing and given his role as Trump’s personal attorney with no role in the White House) on Saturday to the Iran Freedom Convention for Democracy and Human Rights (IFCDHR) a front for the MEK, Mujahidin e-Khalq, stating that Trump was “committed to regime change” in Iran

Giuliani also said that, “We have a president who is tough… a president who is as committed to regime change as we are” and that confronting Iran is “more important than an Israeli-Palestinian deal.”

Giuliani has been a lobbyist for over a decade for the MEK (see Jonathan Vankin in the INQUISITR)

In 2012, Giuliani was widely credited with getting the MEK delisted from its fifteen-year-old U.S. State Department designation as a “terrorist organization” under a court-imposed deadline for a decision (cf. Spencer Ackerman in Share 12/09/2012)

The MEK as a proxy for the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq had been held responsible for the deaths of three American military officers and three military contractors

The MEK, following a 2004 NYT Magazine report, is widely regarded as a husband-and-wife cult led by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi given its controls over the sex lives and reading of its members, though it now presents itself as a pro-democracy organization and implacable enemy of the Islamic Tehran regime that provides intelligence (usually fake) on Iran’s nuclear program

In 2012, the MEK, in spite of the support it had gained among some American politicians and policy buffs, was still largely considered a fringe cult with limited appeal to Iranians

However, currently both John Bolton, Trump’s newly-named National Security Adviser, and Mike Pompeo, the newly-minted Secretary of State, are known supporters of the MEK

Trump in his campaign to be the Republican nominee, in his presidential campaign and as president, has repeatedly denounced the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as a “bad one,” the “worst deal ever”

This week it is widely believed that he will renounce the nuclear deal and re-impose economic sanctions contrary to the dire warnings against such a move by world political leaders such as Emmanuel Macron, President of France, and UN Secretary General António Guterres because of the imminent prospect of war (Boris Johnson, the UK Foreign Secretary, arrived in Washington yesterday to continue Macron’s lobbying campaign)

May 12 is the deadline for making a decision about renewing sanctions by the U.S.

Trump is highly unlikely to go to war against Tehran given his dedication to pulling troops out of the Middle East and Far East (“We are going to stop spending US$7 trillion abroad and start focusing on infrastructure at home.”) in spite of the propensities and preferences of the hawks among his reborn foreign policy personnel

By all reputable accounts and inspection reports, Iran has kept the terms of the nuclear deal, but it has not curbed, and likely enhanced, its missile program as well as its troubling interventions in Syria, not just to back the Assad regime, but to establish long term military and missile bases in Syria. If the U.S. re-authorizes economic sanctions, thereby renouncing its commitment to the nuclear deal, a deep schism will result between the U.S. and its European allies who are intent on continuing their support for the nuclear deal.

The likely result will be that the U.S. will give, and has already probably committed itself to giving, Israel permission to act as its surrogate in attacking Iranian targets in Syria. Note the following:

Retired Israeli military generals and intelligence officers have become very vocal and have openly warned that withdrawal from the nuclear deal will make matters worse

In The Guardian on the weekend, Mark Townsend and Julian Borger reported that an Israeli intelligence firm had been employed by the Trump campaign to discredit those in the Obama regime (Kerry, Rhodes, Kahl, Biden) that had been active in forging the deal by means of “dirty ops” thereby helping to discredit the deal

Netanyahu in the week before presented an elaborate show-and-tell with an impressive array of detail captured by the Mossad on the well-known pre-deal record of lying and cheating by the Iranian regime on the Iranian nuclear program

Netanyahu almost explicitly claimed that Iran was continuing its past practices of lying and cheating in the post 2015 nuclear deal period but provided absolutely no evidence to that effect

Most ominously, Netanyahu insisted that Iran had to be stopped and it was better to do that now rather than later

Israel insists on continuing its policy of absolute control over the skies concerning any threats emanating from Syria as evidenced when Israel shot down an Iranian drone in February

In the past several weeks, Israel has upped the ante in attacking Iranian facilities in Syria; in the most significant action, Israeli F-15 fighter jets destroyed a cache of Iranian missiles and, in the process, reportedly killed dozens of Iranian military personnel

On 30 April, the Knesset voted to give Netanyahu authorization, if the Defense Minister agreed, to “declare war under extreme circumstances,” thereby amending the Israel’s Basic Law Clause 40A that states that the “state shall not start a war save by force of a government decision” and that such a decision will be conveyed to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee ASAP; the revised procedure would sideline the traditional pattern that the IDF, the intelligence institutions and the Foreign Affairs Ministry would all be consulted before such a decision

Netanyahu has repeatedly drawn a red line in the sand insisting that Israel will not permit Iran to establish military bases in Syria; in fact, there are three red lines: 1) no Iranian or Iranian proxies (e.g. Hezbollah) on Israeli borders; 2) no Iranian precision-guided missiles in Syria; 3) no expanded Iranian military entrenchment in Syria

Putin’s meeting this week with Netanyahu is unlikely to dissuade Israel from any further military action in Lebanon but will seek reassurances and mechanisms that Russian facilities will not be targeted

Hawkish Israeli cabinet members have insisted that Israel’s security will remain in dire jeopardy unless Assad is removed, an unlikely prospect, but holding that goal up will make Netanyahu’s military initiative against the Iranian presence in Syria appear as a more modest effort, even if quite disproportionate to the provocation, and will put further pressure on Assad to accede to Israeli demands that Iran be required to remove its military bases from Syria

A distraction from the eruptions expected from Palestinian quarters to the imminent U.S. embassy opening in Jerusalem in a week adds fuel to the increased prospect of a much higher military engagement of Israel against Iran in Syria

The disproportionate Israeli response to the Hamas efforts against the fence received relatively muted international criticism and Hamas has now been reduced effectively to pleading for a long-term military truce

Iran has become both very circumspect at the same time as it has been more vocal in warning the U.S. not to cancel the nuclear deal. More specifically,

Until 12 May, Iran has put further military initiatives in Syria on “pause”

On Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani not only threatened the U.S. if it reneged on the nuclear deal, but also announced that, “We have plans to resist any decision by Trump on the nuclear accord…Orders have been issued to our atomic energy organization … and to the economic sector to confront America’s plots against our country”

American and/or Israeli diplomatic and/or military initiatives will weaken Rouhani and strengthen his rival hard line Revolutionary Guard Corps leader, Qassem Soleimani and solidify support for him by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Soleimani is almost surely planning a quid pro quo attack on an Israeli military operation after 12 May even though it will almost surely result in a much larger retaliation against the Iranian military presence in Syria

In the May 6th elections in Lebanon, Hezbollah has run candidates, even more hawkish than before and in all constituencies for the first time in an effort to extend its control over Lebanese political and military policies and put Lebanon even further into Iran’s back pocket

The prospect of war with Israel and the imminent likely cancellation of the nuclear deal has led to a further precipitous decline in the value of the Iranian currency, putting more pressure on the regime to find a distraction and a nationalist rallying cry

The radical forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, especially the Al Quds division, is highly unlikely to retreat from its efforts to provide the point of attack for Iran to project power in the region even though in the past it moved into vacuums created by others; Soleimani likely views himself at a point of no return or retreat, but this is the critical breaking point on which Israel is forging its new activist agenda against Iran (cf. the recent piece by Jonathan Paris in the Fathom Forum)

I have been a strong supporter of the Iran nuclear deal. I have also warned that the debates over the Iran nuclear were really over differences in how to respond to the increasing threat of a more conventionally militant Iran. Both issues are now merging once again and the most likely prospect is an Israeli enhanced military involvement in Syria targeting Iran and with an implicit backing of the U.S. I believe that such an enhanced response would be more effective if it was de-linked from the Iranian nuclear deal but the Netanyahu government seems to believe otherwise and that now is the time to take action in the interest of long-term as well as immediate strategic goals.

Expect war unless Soleimani backs away temporarily (unlikely) to increase his forces fighting in Yemen and with Turkish forces against the Kurds.

I previously disparaged three options, first, relying on hope for Donald Trump to change his spots or be confined by Congress, second, hoping for failure for Trump, and, third, taking refuge and moving psychologically, and a few even physically, into exile. The main emphasis was on hope for change in Donald Trump.

When Obama says that he is “cautiously optimistic” that transitioning from candidate to president-in-waiting would force Trump to focus and get serious about “gaining the trust even of those who didn’t support him,” where is the evidence? As Obama said one test will be “not only in the things he says, but also how he fills out his administration.” Look who he has named initially to positions of power: Steve Bannon as chief strategist, though not an anti-Semite, is a man who is quite willing to play to the alt-right and promulgate conspiracy theories; Jeff Sessions (Sen. Alabama), nominated as Attorney General, has a habit of making racist remarks, though possibly not a racist, expressing a strong anti-immigration position and insisting that grabbing a woman’s genitals is not assault; retired General Michael Flynn has been nominated as Defense Intelligence Agency chief, an adviser who believes that fear of Muslims is rational, that Islam is a political ideology and not a religion, and, further, he is a distributor of “Flynn facts” to compete with Donald Trump’s mendacity; Mike Pompeo (Kansas Rep.) as CIA director had aligned himself with the Tea Party and reprimanded Muslims on their silence about terrorists. How can one still hope that Trump will not embrace torture methods and not fulfill his plan to turn towards Putin whom he so admires for his strength? How could Obama say, “my hope is that (moderation) that’s something he is thinking about.”?

Trump’s appointees, as well as himself, are men who live in a fabulist universe of their own making. Donald Trump provided a half hour interview with Alex Jones characterized as “the foremost purveyor of outlandish conspiracy theories.” Alex broadcasts his radio program in Austin, Texas, from which I recently returned. (As one example, and only one of very many, he insisted that the United Nations intends to release plagues; those plagues will kill off 80 percent of the people in the world and the remaining population will be pushed into crowded cities where they will be enslaved by the elite.) Trump told Alex that he had no intention of apologizing for promoting the story that large numbers of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated in the streets at the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Further, he told Alex that he liked and appreciated the number of T-shirts that Alex had produced and sold at his rallies that had inscribed on them, “Hillary for Prison.”

Obama advised Donald Trump “to take responsibility. Rise to the dignity of the office of the president of the United States instead of hiding behind your Twitter account. … Show America that racism, bullying and bigotry have no place in your White House.” Fat chance! All the indications, especially his initial appointments, are that Trump will govern in line with the populist, hardline positions of his election campaign. Mike Pence, the Vice-President-elect was in the audience of the hit musical, Hamilton. Halting the applause at the end, Brandon Victor Dixon, one if the actors, read out a statement directed at Mike Pence. “We, sir — we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. We truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

Brandon was applauded while Pence snuck out, though he evidently stayed in the lobby long enough to hear the full statement. In response, Donald Trump tweeted, “Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing. This should not happen! The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!” A polite expression of hope interpreted as harassment? Insisting this expression of free speech “should not happen”! Suggesting that speaking out politely and with civility in this way made the theatre an unsafe place! The cast was not rude. Trump was when he asked for an apology. And Pence himself later said that he had not been bothered by the statement of the cast member.

And look at Mike Pence himself whom Trump chose to be his Vice-President and currently serves as the head of his transition team. Mike Pence is an ardent climate change denier. He opposes egalitarian treatment of women – he supports the repeal of Roe vs Wade and is one of the most extreme anti-abortion advocates in the country. He is homophobic. He supports lower taxes and relief from gun restrictions. He is a ‘get-tough-on-crime’ guy and erroneously believes that violent crime is on the increase, He does not trust drug rehabilitation programs. Three times, Pence voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that called for equal pay for women.

Donald Trump himself has not changed. On Friday, Donald boasted that he had persuaded “his friend, Bill Ford,” to keep the Ford plant in Louisville, Kentucky and not transfer it to Mexico. However, Ford had no plans to transfer the plant there and, in any case, if it did, it could not implement such a plan because of its agreement with the Autoworkers Union. Only the production of the Lincoln, as previously announced, was to be moved, probably to Chicago, (only 21,000 per year are assembled compared to 259,000 Ford Escorts) to make room for increased production of the latter, their most popular model. There would be no loss of jobs. Further, Ford continues to implement its plans to move the assembly of the Ford Focus to Mexico as announced during the campaign, a move which Trump denounced, but one on which he is now silent. Carrier too is going ahead with moving its plant that employs 1,400 to Mexico. Trump is silent on both moves but is a master at practicing diversion.

The biggest danger by far is putting Climate Change Deniers in the White House. According to Reuters, during the campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump would take a “You’re fired” approach to the upper echelons of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), even possibly “burrowing” and seeking Congressional approval to “clean house” at a much deeper civil service level than the usual pattern of a successive presidency from an opposite party. Whatever the extent and depth of blowing up EPA, Donald Trump will immediately rescind the Obama regulations to fight climate change, especially those on fossil fuel development.

Trump appointed Myron Ebell to head EPA. Ebell, like Trump, is a “sound-bite artist” and has been a mouthpiece for the fossil fuel industry insisting totally falsely that the scientific community is in disarray over whether climate change in its rate and direction has been overwhelmingly induced by human interventions. Ebell has insisted that human induced global warming is a myth not backed up by economic, scientific and risk analysis. The little global warming has been well within the range of natural cyclical climate variability. And northern climes, including Canada, will benefit disproportionately.

War will be declared on the “Clean Air Act,” which incidentally had overwhelming bipartisan support when it was passed in 1990. Then, the Act addressed acid rain, ozone depletion and toxic air pollution. Standards and enforcement procedures were imposed. Auto gasoline formulations were revised. Yet Donald Trump branded the Act as “Obama’s” Clean Air Act. But it was the Supreme Court in Bush’s term in 2007 that ruled that the anti-pollution legislation aimed at mercury and sulphur emissions could apply to greenhouse gases. Thus, the revised strict carbon reduction standards set by the EPA in the Obama administration in place of a cap and trade or carbon tax, which the Republican-controlled Congress would not pass, were legal as well.

As I have noted previously, Ebell is a notorious climate change denier. To him, the regulations on climate change were just an excuse to advance and expand government. The EPA will be deliberately and massively dismantled. Ebell will open more federal lands for fracking and permit long-stalled pipelines to be built. Ebell will advise Trump to opt out of the 2015 Paris Accord, advice which The Donald will accept. The Koch brothers’ investment in Ebell’s research institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, will have paid off. But, as I wrote previously, the war will be against regulations and bureaucracy, not against the use of renewable energy. And, as I tried to argue, there is enough of a head of steam behind the development of renewable energy sources that it will, ironically, be able to compete on the economic level with fossil fuels, even more so if there is a level playing field and all the direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuel are removed.

The latter is unlikely. Nevertheless, even if still handicapped, the use of recyclables now has the economic advantage even in a political atmosphere promoting “energy independence,” which the U.S. has largely achieved already, There will be a spate of licenses issued for more onshore and offshore drilling. But fossil fuel developers are not stupid. They will tie up those licenses at the same time as they buy into the recyclable industry, not just to hedge their bets, but because that is where not only the future but the present development of energy is heading. Ironically, I expect deregulation to assist the recyclable fuel industry more than the fossil fuel one because of the current underlying economics. So although Trump has declared war on the environmentalists and virtually the entire scientific community in that field, and determined that, “America’s environmental agenda will be guided by true specialists in conservation, not those with radical political agendas,” this will in many ways be a setback for the environment, but in other ways will be an ironic godsend as firms working on applying recyclable technology will be freed up from the burden of an enormous number of environmental regulations.

Thus, I do not hope for any fundamental change in approach. I also do not hope for failure. Trump is a winner. Has he not demonstrated that sufficiently? His transition will not fall apart through infighting. Neither will his government, as much as bloodletting can be expected from among the victors. Further, he will in one sense succeed beyond anyone’s expectations. He will both lower taxes, impede free trade, and go on a binge of spending on massive infrastructure programs while cutting regulations. Trickle-down economics will be in the driver’s seat, but with a populist and very popular building program that will provide well-paying jobs while inflating economy enormously. Economists expect inflation to go back up to between 2.25 and 2.75 percentage points. It will get much higher than that, but more of that in another blog. Donald Trump might even introduce a universal child care program as advocated by his daughter and even fix Obama care – rebranded as Trumpcare – by introducing a single payer system alongside private country-wide insurance schemes. By the end of Trump’s term, the American debt will spiral towards the heavens. But so will the value of Trump’s assets. Trump will go from being a few billionaire to over a fifty billionaire, for inflation is always on the side of those who own property.

For the first few years, the Trump regime, like the one by Chavez in Venezuela, will be very popular and the Trump support will grow even if it is at the expense of refugees who will be largely ignored, the Arabs who will have lost any leverage over Trump, minorities, human and women’s rights and those caught up in a renewed law-and-order regime. Putin will be given carte blanche in the Crimea and possibly in other parts of Eastern Europe. Obama had begun to draw down America’s role as the world’s policeman. Donald Trump will send Pax America to death row. If Trump can stave off hug increases in inflation for four years, he will, at the age of seventy-four, be re-elected with an even larger mandate.

If this is true and if you oppose this agenda, why not withdraw emotionally from a huge investment in the public sphere and retreat into private concerns? Many will, both to avoid the threatening atmosphere as well as to keep one’s sanity. But to the degree there is a withdrawal – and there will be at least some – Donald Trump will accumulate more power in his hands than any previous president in U.S. history.
I already argued that our greatest fear – the cessation of the effort to replace fossil fuels by recyclables – will proceed ahead because, given the accelerating lower costs combined with a degree of deregulation, the conversion will proceed at an even faster rate in spite of the cackle of climate change deniers in positions of power in Washington.

Will we end up with WWIII? Highly unlikely. Trump is not a warrior president. He will pick on and pick off the little guys, the small fry – the terrorists – but he will not get into a military war with the powerful rivals of the U.S. even as he builds the American military force even more. Donald Trump will end America’s war as a protector of human rights and a challenger, however inconsistent and half-hearted, to the repression of rights and freedom for journalists. He will get along, not only with Putin, but with many other populist dictators around the world – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey), Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines) and will further prop up Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt. He will befriend the right wing governments popping up all over Europe as Trump progenitors –Beata Szydio in Poland from the Law and Justice Party, Viktor Orbán and János Áder of the Jobikk Party in Hungary, Rumen Radev (president) from the Independent Party and Tsetska Tsacheva (VP) from the GERB Party in Bulgaria. Trump may desert Netanyahu for an even more right-wing regime in Israel. The range of moves in this area is unknown, but the pattern can be anticipated. And the pattern indicates little likelihood of moving the minute hand on the atomic doomsday clock closer to midnight. I do not believe WWIII is on the horizon.